Biznology Blog: January 2010

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January 29, 2010

Internet Hucksters of the Information Age

by Frank Reed

Many people, including myself, have spoken about the death of sales as we once knew it. The ABC method (Always Be Closing) no longer has the same effect that it once had because people are smarter than that. People, in general, don't like to be manipulated and the years and years of being burnt have taken their toll. We as a society are too smart to listen to just any sales person and inherently trust what they are saying. We also realize that many times that what's in the best interest of the salesperson is not in the best interest of the customer. In other words, salespeople sell things that earn commission rather than trust but those days are drawing to a close rapidly.

That is, of course, unless you are talking about the Internet space. While most folks no longer walk into a car dealership without doing research online, they will go to just about any Web site without doing their research and take every word on that site as the gospel truth. They will also get all glassy eyed about any new gadget or service without thinking twice. Why is that?

It's because of ignorance. Now, please don't take offense. Ignorance is only bad if you choose to remain ignorant despite having been told the pitfalls of whatever it is you are getting into. Being ignorant is where everyone starts on any subject before they have been taught anything. Ignorance is not bad unless it is allowed to remain. Now, being stupid is another thing altogether and no matter how hard you may try you can't undo stupid (just ask my wife of 15 years on this one, she'll testify).

So what is this Internet ignorance? How can such a thing exist in such a technologically advanced society? That's an easy one. It's because the commercial Internet is still relatively new in the grand scheme of things (15-20 years depending on who you talk to) and the pace of change is so rapid that it makes even the experts' heads spin at times. As a result, we are all susceptible to being sold things again just like the days when you went to the car dealer and considered it a good experience if no one died and you didn't feel dirty when you left the lot.

The Internet is full of new age hucksters and shysters. Many of them are some of the best-known business people in the world. Like who, you ask? Well, based on this week, Steve Jobs may be the epitome of the new age snake oil salesman. Apple spent a lot of effort announcing its iPad (one of the most maligned new toy names in years) and people are standing around with their mouths open in awe. Because it looks cool and neat and shiny (much like a new car), people are clamoring to buy this new toy. But is it really worth the effort?

I have seen more negative press around this most anticipated product than I have seen around most, and it is those in the know that are calling BS on Apple. Why is that? What do you mean? Is Apple trying to pull a fast one? Well, quite possibly, yes. You see, there are many that are wondering what exactly this thing is. Many are saying it's just an oversized iPod Touch. Revolutionary? Hardly. So why the ruckus about the product? Ignorance. People are ignorant about what it can really do, but because it is being sold so hard, they are buying. Boy, it must seem like the good old days for car sales people and insurance peddlers, huh?

So, what's the point? The point is that while in many ways we are smarter and more educated than ever, we are also more ignorant than ever. While many herald this as the Information Age, I think the subtitle should be "The Age of Caveat Emptor." Be careful out there. Someone really wants to sell you something that may not be in your best interest. Imagine that.

Posted by FrankReed at 12:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 28, 2010

Why Marketers Don't Need to Care About the iPad

The mania has struck again for another new device. The. One. That. Will. Change. Everything. If you are a publisher, maybe you need to take notice. But if you are a garden variety digital marketer, the iPad probably won't rock your world. To see why that's good, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Why Marketers Don't Need to Care About the iPad."

Posted by MikeMoran at 5:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 27, 2010

How Do Customers Find Your Store?

That's your question, but it's not their question. Customers want to know how they find the store that has the product they want for the right trade-off of price and convenience. Until now, that was not easy to do. Enter Milo.com, a free Web site that enables shoppers to research online and buy local—providing the best of both worlds. You can search for the product you crave online, just as you do with any shopping search engine, but the results have a twist: Milo can show the brick-and-mortar stores that have the product in stock, along with the price. So you can decide between driving ten more minutes and paying $20 more.

Ted Dziuba is the co-founder and lead engineer for Milo.com, and he recently did an e-mail interview with me that I thought you'd be interested in.

Me: Why did you start Milo?

TD: 95 percent of all commerce still takes place offline, with many people researching online before buying in-store. We aim to make that experience seamless by providing local availability information for over 1.6 million products (with more added every `day). Our mission is to have real-time local availability and pricing information for every product on every shelf of every store.

Me: For readers who don't know about Milo, how would you describe it?

TD: Milo.com combines the advantages of an Amazon-like experience with the ability to touch, feel and get products now at a local retailer. We currently track over 1.6 million products at over 42,000 stores all across the country. Milo.com provides all of the product details and user reviews people have come to expect with online shopping, and then searches store shelves to find the best price and availability for the products shoppers want--right when they want them.

Me: Your role seems really interesting. For someone who might might not understand what you do, how do you explain it?

TD: I work with merchants to bring their pricing and real-time availability data online. If you have a store and would like to get your inventory data on to Milo, my team would work on that integration.

Me: Why does the world need another shopping search engine?

TD: Milo.com is the only site on the Internet that is able to help shoppers establish a real-time link between the online and offline shopping worlds. We're not just another shopping search engine; we actually tell you what's in-stock and at what price at your local store. We think that this is still a largely unfilled need—the local/online bridge. There is a hearty crowd of online shopping search engines that aggregate data across online-only merchants, but e-commerce is still only 5% of the US retail market. Nobody has yet attempted to go that extra way to bring the other 95% online. It's a very difficult problem, and I am proud of the progress we've made.

Me: How do you get the data that you show for pricing and product availability and how do you keep it up to date?

TD: Data comes to us in a variety of ways--for the most part we use our proprietary technology to hook directly into our retail partners' inventory data and provide shoppers real-time access to local product availability and prices, along with other helpful data such as specifications and user reviews.

Me: What's Milo's business model and how does its model compare with those of other shopping search engines?

TD: We're still exploring a variety of monetization opportunities. We see traditional CPA/CPC as an "old standby" and hope to provide some innovative strategies here to both make money and drive traffic into brick and mortar stores. I don't think I can say much more at this time.

Me: What's your favorite searcher and/or advertiser success story?

TD: I told a friend of mine about Milo.com at a dinner party and I got an e-mail from him weeks later that he used our mobile site on his iPhone to find poker chips. Thinking about it, I have no idea where I would buy poker chips at the last minute, but now I know you can get them at your local Walgreens.

Shopping search has been around for a while, but unlike with general Web search, it's still populated by many small companies with relatively small market shares. Why do you think the markets of Web search and shopping search have evolved so differently?

I think there are so many players in the market because the path to monetization with affiliate marketing is so easy to follow. The hard part is that if everyone is doing it and not really adding any value, then the market gets saturated with a bunch of me-too businesses. I think that Milo.com is taking a unique approach to online/offline shopping and hopefully that will distinguish us from the rest.

Me: What do you see coming next for Milo?

TD: Our mission is to index every product on every shelf in every store. There's a long way to go, but I see us working with more retailers in the future, as brick and mortar stores are really starting to realize that they need to drive foot traffic through an online strategy if they're going to compete with Amazon.

Me: What do you see coming next for this whole space in the industry in the long run?

TD: I really believe that local is going to be the future. Google and Microsoft have both recently announced their interest in entering the local market, as it's such a massive space compared to online. I think we're also going to see a lot more mobile integration going on—there's such a ripe opportunity with location aware devices and local shopping.

Me: Thanks so much for sharing this with my readers, Ted.

Posted by MikeMoran at 2:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 26, 2010

Let's Push "Delete" on Big Button Marketing

If you're in marketing, you've probably been tempted yourself. You're not all that confident that what you are offering is all that exciting, so you might think that you need to fuzz things up just a bit. You might think that if you could fool people, just a little bit, into thinking that your offer was a bit better than it was--put it in the best possible light, yes, but maybe even a little better light than that. Unfortunately, the Internet punishes that kind of behavior, because someone calls you on your (slight) deception, and they do it publicly. All this was brought to mind recently when I was trying to download some "free" software by pressing the big button and kept ending up with the paid version, because the offer was just a little too good to be true. If you've been fooling folks just a bit, and you are wondering what the alternative is, check out my latest post on Internet Evolution, "Let's Push 'Delete' on Big Button Marketing."

Posted by MikeMoran at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 25, 2010

Blogging 101

I've heard people say that blogging is so over now that Twitter is all the rage, but I don't buy it. (If you're reading this blog, you probably don't either.) I still get folks every day that ask me about what they can do to get started with a blog and I do my bext to help them out, but today I did a Webinar for the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) called "Blogging 101" (my slides are linked to the title) that provides a set of steps for how to get started and how to improve your blog once you are up and running. So if you're not a MENG member (see what you are missing?), you can still take a look at the slides.

Posted by MikeMoran at 4:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 22, 2010

Do Rural and Mobile Play Well Together?

by Frank Reed

I have been watching the changes that have been coming down the pike for quite some time now with regard to local search. I am not some kind of an expert but I am certainly aware of the trends and changes. Google has been innovating at breakneck speed and most of their innovations have been related to mobile devices, mobile search, and ways for end users to find what they want, when they want it, when they are on the go.

Now my question is, "While all of these whiz bang gadgets and thingies are cool, who are best served by them?" The search industry's answer is, "everyone," but I am not convinced that that is the case, or even will be the case for a long time, if ever. Why? Because having a nifty smart phone device is for a certain kind of person. They skew younger (certainly younger than me) and they are people that are generally more associated with attention deficit disorder than anything else.

So where I am I going with this? Here's my hypothesis. This type of "find it now" technology actually will not affect a larger portion of the people in the US because of where they live and more importantly "how" they live. Sure, it might be cool if you are in New York City visiting and looking for somewhere to have a good cup of coffee, but that works only in an urban setting. Folks in rural settings already know where they get the best cup of coffee because they are likely to have fewer choices, and their friends have pointed them there anyway, not Google.

I live in Wake Forest, NC, which is nice little town of about 25,000 people. When I found out about the "Near You Now" feature of Google's mobile search, I tried it in town and it worked. It told me about the coffee shop (the only one on the main street of downtown"). After the cool factor wore off, though, I realized that in my limited geography, Google had simply told me what I already knew. Sure, if I am a visitor to any area, this could be helpful, but the volume of "visitors" to Wake Forest that are completely clueless about the services available are few relative to the overall population.

Oh, and most people in the US? They don't travel much. If it's a week a year it's a lot, and many like to shut down their gadgets during that time. So how does that help the local business who is looking to tap into the mobile crowd?

So, on a local level these kinds of services really don't do much, unless local to you means Boston, New York, Chicago, Dallas, LA, etc. What means something to the rural citizen is where their friends are. Knowing that maybe people like Foursquare (the location-based game that tells people where you are and gives rewards for participation) are on to something bigger. It's not the place, it's the people. How about that? People in much of the world value relationships over things. Who woulda thunk?

So what I am going to be keeping my eye on is which people are using the types of cool urban-centric services that are associated with the mobile Web. As a marketer, it will be important to not fall into the trap that everyone uses their mobile device in the same way. Honestly, there would be little that Google could tell me about Wake Forest, NC that I don't already know by virtue of living here.

So for the rural crowd, what happens when the "neat-o!" factor wears off on these services? Probably the same as always--they will look to find their friends and talk about how they get out of the town that they know so much about.

Posted by FrankReed at 9:56 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

January 21, 2010

How Can Our Products Be Remarkable?

Seth Godin is fond of saying that we must make our products and our companies remarkable, but it's easier to say than to do (as Seth well knows). And I fear that some people just blow off Seth's advice, because they hear "remarkable" as just another fatuous superlative, such as "great" or "fantastic" that is bereft of its original, more specific meaning. Remarkable means something that would cause someone to remark about it. So, how do we become remarkable?

Too many people have given up on being remarkable because they believe that it's too hard. They think about a company such as Apple, with makes the quintessentially remarkable products and ask, "How could I ever do anything that remarkable?"

I'm here to tell you that you don't have to.

In fact, one way to be remarkable has nothing to do with your product, but rather your attitude. Take a direct competitor to Apple, Dell Computer. Dell has made itself remarkable in recent years, not by its products but by its behavior.

When Dell was called out by Jeff Jarvis and others for its poor customer service (the entire "Dell Hell" debacle), it responded remarkably, not by ignoring social media but by embracing it, by engaging, and by changing it s corporate culture to be much more open and responsive. That approach caused many a positive remark in the blogosphere and has culminated in Dell's IdeaStorm initiative, in which its remarkable corporate behavior is now causing its customers to bring it the ideas that might yet become the next remarkable product.

Take a page from Dell. If you don't have any remarkable products, start acting remarkably toward your customers. Your customers might start to trust you enough to help you create remarkable products.

Posted by MikeMoran at 4:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 20, 2010

Book Review: The Art of SEO

I know I am the co-author of a search marketing book, but you really need to read this one, too. The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization is an in-depth look at organic search practices by four of the top experts in the field. It goes deeper than any book I have seen into specific areas of SEO that any serious practitioner needs to know. It's the best deep dive into SEO of any book around, so I want to bring it your attention.

This book has been out a few months, so you might be wondering why I am bringing it up now. Well, the answer is that my memory is shot. I woke up this morning and realized that I had read two books months ago and had never posted reviews. This happened to me because I was sent preview copies and then forgot to post the reviews when the books became available to the public. Let me remedy one of those oversights today.

Before I start, I should point out that this isn't exactly an unbiased review. I have known one of the authors (Stephan Spencer) for years and I have met Rand Fishkin a few times. I know the other two authors by reputation and this really is an all-star team of SEO authors. I opened this book expecting it to be good and I closed it by writing a blurb that is printed inside the book. So, I am not unbiased--I know these people and highly recommend anything they do, including this book.

The book itself is unique in that it is an in-depth treatment of Search Engine Optimization (SEO, or organic search) and doesn't try to cover the additional ground of paid search. As the search marketing industry has matured, the need for deep coverage of specialties has become more and more apparent, and this book is an excellent place to deepen your knowledge.

I've seen some criticisms of this book because it does not have the top-level introductory coverage of the search industry that beginners require, which is true. But I don't think that was the author's purpose. If you need the overview for newbies, buy a Dummies book or buy our book that covers the basics, along with in-depth marketing concepts along with organic and paid search. The Art of SEO is not a beginner's book--it's your second book on organic search and it is a fine choice.

Perhaps the best way to explain how important this book is would be to list all of the topics covered in depth in this book that are not covered (or covered lightly) in our book. See, our book really is a good first book in search marketing, but it can only go so deep. This book picks up where we leave off:

• Analyzing ranking factors
• Image search
• Local search
• Moving domains
• Competitive analysis
• Duplicate content
• Content theft
• Site redesigns
• Changing SEO vendors
• Optimizing Flash

And that's just a partial list. Some critics (who say the same thing about every SEO book) claim that you shouldn't buy any books because you can find everything in the book on the Web for free. Well, that's fine, go ahead. I even post a lot of the content from our book free on my Web site.

But if you aren't too cheap to buy a book or two, make sure that the The Art of SEO is one of them. You can't go wrong listening to experts like these and it will save you enormous amounts of time in searching around Web sites and (more importantly) trying to figure out which free advice is actually correct. If these folks say it, you can take it to the bank.

Posted by MikeMoran at 1:44 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

January 19, 2010

Does Your Small Business Think Local?

I've long tried to advise small businesses to find a specialty when they are prospecting for customers on the Web. They might have succeeded for years as the local business that did everything for their customers, but on the Internet they suddenly look the same as everyone else. But the advent of mobile searching is changing that equation, so that local is becoming important again. To learn more, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Does Your Small Business Think Local?"

Posted by MikeMoran at 12:20 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 18, 2010

Wikipedia and Reputation Management

by Eva Lyford

Go on, search for your company. I dare you not to find a Wikipedia entry in the first page of results, if you're a company of a certain size or significance. Now be honest--are you engaged at all in that Wikipedia article? Or, when you are Googling your paid search terms and your organization name, is the Wikipedia article on the topic one that your eyes carelessly slide past? What are you thinking?

Wikipedia entries consistently rank in the top 10 results for any query (see: A Survival Guide to SEO & Wikipedia). In comparisons with traditional shelved references, Wikipedia is generally found to be more inclusive and no less reliable (see Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica and Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia). Wikipedia isn't perfectly reliable, it absolutely isn't. But neither are the traditional reference books. Caveat lector.

If you decide to include Wikipedia in your Web strategy, proceed carefully. Here's some points to consider:

• First, understand the editorial policies of Wikipedia.
• Understand that you are giving away your writing when you write for Wikipedia. Note the text shown below any article's edit box: "You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. See the Terms of Use for details."
• Be aware that your contributions may be flagged for potential bias as well. The following text may be appended to your articles: "A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view." This is actually good. This means that 1) you're not trying to obscure your connection to the topic, and 2) that someone checked out your article. The Wikipedia community favors honest disclosure.
  
• There is no undo. Once you submit the article, it is public content. It can be edited, reduced, refined, expanded, diminished, but it is there. So don't go publishing your quarterly earnings on Wikipedia ahead of the release to the street.

So let's publish a Wikipedia article to help with our search strategy! Right? Or not? First, before you write the articles that you care deeply about, familiarize yourself with the process:

• Read the Community Portal for Wikipedia, and edit a few articles that are calling out for it. (The Typo Team is a great place to start.)
• Make a Wikipedia profile, and make note of any potential sources of bias in your profile.
• Review existing articles on topics that are similar to any you are seeking to create.
• Before editing any article, read the talk page for that article to understand any existing edit-wars. You don't want to walk into a fight without doing some reconnaissance.
• "Please do not bite the newcomers" is a real Wikipedia policy. Understand that you might be barked at, but participation is intended to occur civilly and recourse is available if it isn't--so you shouldn't be bitten.
• If a Wikipedia article is defaming something you care about, has factual errors, or is offending you--first, fix it. If this is a recurring problem, then dispute resolution help is available.

Following these steps should assure you of a fairly decent first article on Wikipedia. But they're hardly sufficient. A Wikipedia article will need care and feeding over time, so plan to revisit the article occasionally. A good option for reminders is to set up a watchlist, and subscribe to the RSS feed of that watchlist.

I wish I could tell you to sit back and relax once the article is done but, sadly, resting on your laurels is not an option. But when is it ever an option nowadays? Remember: updating Wikipedia is not a one-and-done exercise. You'll need to plan for some time to stay engaged with the pages you create going forward. To keep yourself motivated, check your analytic tool afterward--when done properly, you'll likely see some high-quality, lengthy visits showing up on your sites from Wikipedia.  And that can be motivation enough to stay connected to the Wikipedia process, and can provide a significant ROI for the time spent on the article.

Posted by EvaLyford at 8:52 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 14, 2010

Google and China: Business Morality or Reality?

by Frank Reed

This week was as interesting as always with regard to Google. We should be accustomed now by our news in the Internet marketing industry being dominated by Google. It's just the way it is. If you feel the urge to cry "Monopoly!" don't, because you need to check the definition of a monopoly. You see, a monopoly is a company that has cornered a market and does not allow for competition to exist. Microsoft on the desktop reeks of monopoly but Google, on the other hand, smells like something different. That different smell is dominance. It's outperforming everyone and their brother at the game they play. For now, at least, it is being the king of the hill and not showing any signs of weakness.

That's in the US and much of the rest of the world. China, on the other hand, is a different story. This week Google decided that it was no longer going to play the required game just to be a distant second to China's search engine of choice, Baidu. The game was that it needed to censor search results to make the Chinese government happy. Hey, if you want access to the largest market on the planet, you need to be a nice house guest.

What was it that Ben Franklin said about house guests? House guests are like fish in that if they stay around your house more than three days they begin to stink. In this case though, it wasn't Google that stunk. It was the Chinese and their tactics. You see, China has decided that hacking into human activists' Gmail accounts is a good thing to do in order to keep tabs on the people that prefer freedom. As a result, Google as a whole was suddenly at risk and could be perceived as suspect on security, even though nothing was truly accessed. Reuters reports that 30 companies may have "attacked" by someone in China (read: the government), so this is not just a Google issue.

Google's response has been to play the trump card of saying that they will no longer censor their search results. As you might guess, the Chinese government thinks that is not a very good option. In an almost masterful way, Google has done something that few could pull off.

Suppose that they are playing this game which places them on the moral high road, and they know they are likely to get bounced out of China on their ear because of it. Sure, they lose a lot of potential revenue but they also create something else; a new business reality for other companies (i.e other search companies etc) that desire to do business with the Chinese. How will it look if Google gives the impression that they will walk away from huge potential sums of money because of Chinese policies on human rights and this whole espionage thing, but others stay there and try to do business with the Chinese?

What is the new perception of those that stay? I would have to say pretty negative. These companies will be perceived as bowing to the Chinese way of doing things just to make a buck. Oh, and they are doing it in a place that has possibly the worst human rights record on the planet. Talk about a reputation management issue.

Google, on the other hand? They look like the model world corporate citizen for standing up to the Chinese. Sure they lost some opportunity there, but the rest of the world thinks they are heroes. All of this too, in the only market of any value on the earth that Google was getting its butt handed to them by a competitor (Baidu). No one is looking at that, though. They are going to hold up Google as defender of human rights and the company that stared down the Chinese government.

In this world of little genuine corporate activism, how will Google look to everyone? Pretty darn good. Nice move Google.

Posted by FrankReed at 11:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Justify search budgets with a business case

A lot of folks asked me about a recent talk I gave at the Search Insider Summit, where I took some folks to task for treating SEO more like a religion than a business. If you're still wondering what you can do instead of convincing your execs that search is something to believe in, then check out a new interview I did with BtoB Magazine, "Justify search budgets with a business case."

Posted by MikeMoran at 4:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 13, 2010

Do You Innovate with Customers in MInd?

Innovation is a word that is thrown around a lot these days, but I see far too little innovation in the customer experience. A case in point is the Short Line Bus company (part of CoachUSA). I ride the Short Line bus several times a month, and there are many innovations that would be nice, such as heaters at the bus stops, or electronic displays that tell you when the next bus is coming. But that's not what they changed recently. They made the tickets bigger.

Yeah, I expect that was at the top of every customer's wish list. Bigger tickets. And I don't mean just a little bigger. No, these new tickets are the size of a small Latin American country. We're talking mega-tickets. If they were any bigger, you could board a plane with them. Take a gander for yourself:

The ticket on the left--the old one--was about the size of the credit card. The right one won't even fit in my wallet.

Now, understand, this isn't a big deal. I mean, I'll get over it. But if they were going to innovate in ticketing, why not do something customers care about? Why not offer a monthly pass instead of making people buy tickets for every blessed bus trip? Since most customers are going into New York City, why not let them use their NYC Metro Cards as their tickets? In short, if you're going to change the tickets, why not make a change that improves the customer experience?

But that's not what they did. I still don't know why they changed the tickets. I was hoping that maybe it helped people who were visually impaired, but when I asked several Short Line people, they either didn't know or told me that this was due to "the new ticketing machine." I hope the next time that they change the tickets that they do it for a reason that customers care about.

How would your company pass the same test? When you innovate, when you improve things, are you improving things for your customer or for yourself? If you think your customers aren't paying attention, you're wrong.

Posted by MikeMoran at 3:59 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Checklist for Audio Podcasts

I run into folks all the time that are very well-spoken who wistfully exclaim, "If only I could write well, then I'd start blogging, too." When I hear that, I make sure that they realize that they can send their message out there without writing a word, if they are just willing to record themselves in a podcast. If that's something that's been on your to-do list, but you just don't know how to get started, then take a look at my "Checklist for Audio Podcasts."

Posted by MikeMoran at 12:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 11, 2010

Search Keywords Are Your Market Segments

When I talk to traditional marketers, they are sometimes perplexed with how they put their skills to work. They understand messaging. They understand market segments. But they don't know how they apply to search. Search seems somewhat mysterious, somehow. We often feel like there's some secret that must be unlocked, but the real secret is in how we think about it. If you're struggling with that question, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Search Keywords Are Your Market Segments."

Posted by MikeMoran at 2:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 8, 2010

For the SMB, More Online Opportunity and Confusion Than Ever

by Frank Reed

This year is starting off with a bit of a bang in the online space. Internet marketers are heralding the true "Year of Mobile" which may or may not be the case (ask 2007, 2008, and 2009 how their own "Year of Mobile" deal worked out). Both Google and Apple have purchased companies that have ad platforms for the mobile space. Google is allowing "click to call" in mobile AdWords text ads, which was once only relegated to organic results. Oh and this whole Nexus phone thing? How much more can we take?

Well, imagine now that you are an SMB (small and medium business) owner. You are busy trying to navigate the tricky waters of some very difficult economic times. You are hearing politicians fighting it out over healthcare reform but you have no real voice and may very well be facing serious increases that could hurt your business. Oh, and then there is every Internet marketing expert and his brother telling you that if you haven't gotten on the "social media" train yet, you are likely to be economic road kill much sooner than later.

Well, I am here to say this, "Step back and take a very deep breath if you are one of those SMBs." There is still hope. Oh and if you are one of the "experts" advising the SMB of the end of the marketing world as they know it, just step back, close your mouth and listen.

You see, there is more opportunity than ever on the Internet for the SMB. Trouble is that the Internet marketing industry has decided to bury the uninformed (which is still a very, very large majority of business owners despite what they tell you) and made it impossible to figure out what is the next best thing for them to do. Here are my few simple steps for the SMB to do to start off this new year that might help you embrace the world of social media and the opportunity it offers.

• Take a month or two to listen. That's right, just listen. Monitor what is being done in your industry in the social space. See what your competitors are doing. You may just find out that there are fewer businesses truly engaging customers and others effectively in social media especially at the SMB level.
• Determine where your strengths are. Can you write pretty well? Do you connect with others in the online space or are you better face to face? Are you opinionated enough to comment on other sites and blogs and show others what you know or believe? Decide where you are good.
• Apply your strengths and outsource your weakness. If you are highly social and you work well in a Twitter environment, then concentrate there. If you also admit that you couldn't write your way out of a paper bag, think about how you can get some content produced through other venues.
• Be patient. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is an online presence. It takes time and the patience of Job. It is possible, however. In social media, more than anywhere else I think, many people "throw in the towel" just when they are about to break out. I am living proof of this because I have wanted to throw in the towel often but something is telling me that if I keep it up something very good will happen. Thus, I persevere.
• Take experts with a grain of salt. If you are talking to an expert that is talking down to you, it would be best to get up and walk away. The only way that anything is worked out in this new social media world is as a team. No one has all the answers. It's simply not possible.
• Celebrate success and "Do it wrong quickly." Take Mike's advice on this one. Try things and then try more things. There are no real right or wrong answers. Only results speak in this environment. Celebrate and enhance the good and simply chuck the bad. Don't over think it!

I wish you only the best in the upcoming year. Look at the opportunity ahead and not the opportunity lost. A year from now you may be glad you did.

Posted by FrankReed at 7:25 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

January 7, 2010

SEO Gets No Respect from John Dvorak

I think when you write a blog long enough, it's possible to start to repeat yourself, and I am knowingly doing that today, but it's not my fault. The reason is that John Dvorak keeps repeating himself, and he is still wrong. Very wrong. John just doesn't understand what SEO is and he insists on tarring all search engine optimization pros with the same brush. I've always had a lot of respect for John, but his cluelessness (I can't think of a more charitable word) on SEO is grating.

A little over a year ago, I wrote "Being Cranky for a Living," where I took John to task on his denigration of Google for its poor search results. He's at it again this week, with his "Search Engine Cold Wars and SEO" post, where he takes dead aim at SEO pros.

The problem with John is not that he is wrong about the problems he points out. Those problems certainly exist. Yes, there are spammers out there that will do anything, regardless of the impact on the poor searcher, just to get their products in front of eyeballs. I wish they wouldn't do it, but it's up to Google to stop them, not me.

And just because a few people bend or break the rules is no reason to condemn an entire industry. I don't attack John because some PC columnists might take a few free products, skew their reviews, or do other not-so-nice-stuff. I'd criticize those specific people, not all PC columnists.

The painful part, though, is that anything John does say that has merit is drowned out by his over-the-top tone. I mean, he writes for a magazine full of ads, but he's complaining about the fact that search results are done by marketers. Huh?

And, honestly, he says, "The process is called 'search engine optimization' and is commonly referred to as SEO. It's killing the Internet if it hasn't already. I've complained about it before but it's too late to do anything about it except moan more."

It's hard to know where to start with that statement. I mean, how overblown can you be? let's assume for a second that he is right about how bad SEO is for the Internet (which he's not). Does anyone think the Internet is dead? Dying? Fading? On the wane? I mean, get a grip, John: "killing the Internet if it hasn't already"?

It's this kind of crazy talk that makes it harder for more reasoned voices who can appreciate a little nuance to really complain about the bad apples who create the very problems that he describes.

But it's the second part of that quote that bothers me more: "I've complained about it before but it's too late to do anything about it except moan more." John has complained about it already, and had hundreds of people let him know how far off he is. And yet he stubbornly clings to his black-and-white assessment. It's not that there is nothing to except moan more, it's that there is nothing he wants to do except moan more.

And I can't help but cynically conclude that the reason is that moaning makes for an easy column. I moan sometimes. It feels good. It is easy to write. It gets attention. And sometimes, moaning is OK. But when you keep moaning about something and the blowback you get in response is something you just write off, then you're not listening.

There is more that John could do. He could try to learn something about SEO. He could try to see that there might be some value in what SEO pros do. He might try to be part of the solution instead of just moaning, like the vast majority of SEO pros are. But that doesn't make for a flashy column—and it's hard.

When someone is ignorant, I try to be charitable, because I am ignorant about a lot of things, too. But when the ignorance become willful, it's hard to be so sweet about. John Dvorak seems to be crossing that line, and I needed to moan about it. And yes, this was an easy column. :-)

Time to catch my plane and go help a Fortune 100 company do search marketing the right way. Notwithstanding what John says, companies this big can't possibly try to "reverse engineer" the search ranking algorithm, even if that was something I was willing to help them do, which I am not. They can't change their Web pages the way they change their underwear—that kind of quickness is for small companies. What big companies really need to do is to find out what their customers are searching for and to provide good content that helps their customers find them. Their customers will appreciate being able to find them more easily, even if John thinks I am a trickster.

I was once hopeful that John would be chastened by his initial few disastrous forays into SEO commentary, but it doesn't seem to be the case. It might be time for me to ignore him rather than respond, because he doesn't seem to be listening anymore. It's a shame, because I spent a lot of years hanging on his every word and I am sorry to see what his words have become.

Posted by MikeMoran at 12:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 6, 2010

Learn SEO from Your Spouse

Most couples have at least some trouble discussing their careers with each other, if only because they do very different things. My wife is a full-time homemaker for my four kids, and I am blessed that she actually understands my line of work extremely well (she even edits my books), but I know that kind of relationship is not the norm. So, it might surpise you to hear that I think your mate can teach you a lot about search marketing. To find out what you can learn, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Learn SEO from Your Spouse."

Posted by MikeMoran at 11:57 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 5, 2010

Work With Your Internet Marketing Personality Type

You might not think your personality matters when it comes to your success in Internet marketing, but you'd be wrong. Internet marketing, unlike many other careers, requires you to constantly be learning new information. To find out how your personality affects the way you process new things, check out my latest post on Internet Evolution, "Work With Your Internet Marketing Personality Type."

Posted by MikeMoran at 7:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 4, 2010

Search Marketing Is Like Dating

From across the room, you see...THE ONE. Wow. Your heart goes pit-a-pat at the sight. Immediately, your thoughts start racing. You are ready to do anything, be anything to be attractive to that one person you are fixated on. Is that the right approach? You probably know that it's not the right approach in dating, but did you know that it fails in search marketing, too?

You know it doesn't work with dating because if you are literally willing to do anything, that includes projecting a completely false image of who you are. It's one thing to put your best foot forward, but it's quite another to twist yourself into a pretzel to attract someone. When you do, two possibilities exist, both bad:

• You get rejected. Despite your best efforts to attract THE ONE, nothing works. You tried everything and you are still without your dream date.
• You succeed. Now, I know this seems like a good thing, but in the long run, it isn't, because if you've morphed yourself to be attractive, your dream date is not actually attracted to you. The attraction is to this made-up person that you've become, and eventually the truth will out, and you'll get rejected.

I'm not telling you this because I've suddenly fancied myself writing advice to the lovelorn. No, all these things you know about dating apply to search marketing, too, but most people don't realize it.

When people start thinking about search marketing, Google is THE ONE and they sometimes seem ready to try just about anything to succeed. They focus on taking advice from just about anyone who seems to know what to do, and often that advice is bad.

They start by focusing on the most popular keywords. They plaster them onto their pages and wait for that great traffic to come. And one of two things happen, both of which are bad. They might get no traffic at all. Or they might get traffic, but from all the wrong people.

They also spend a of time trying to outfox Google--chasing the algorithm, it's called. Whatever some expert says that Google wants, that's what they do. No matter that the algorithm changes so frequently that only a true expert can keep up. They are willing to do whatever it takes to attract Google.

In dating, I hope someone gave you the advice to be yourself because you want to attract the right kind of attention from the right people. It's worthless to act like someone you're not because you'll attract someone interested in some other kind of person. Worse, the people who would be attracted to the real you never figure it out.

Search marketing is no different. It's fine to pay attention to search optimization. It's a good idea to do keyword research and use those words on your pages, but only the ones that really match what you sell. If you are willing to do anything to get search traffic, you just end up looking desperate, and you attract all the wrong elements, just like in dating. And the people really looking for you won't find you--and they are the ones who buy.

Posted by MikeMoran at 6:30 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack